Frequent stories appear on the Chinese investment reach around the globe, including increasingly the U.S. What I find further of interest is the outflow of Chinese themselves, either employed by Chinese businesses abroad or in pursuit of their own aims.

This number has been subject to conjecture because Chinaâ€™s official counts, like most countriesâ€™, vastly understate the number of expats. They show only formal visa approvals for work or study. Yet we read stories of a surprising Chinese presence not only in Africa, Latin America and other emerging regions, where Chinaâ€™s state enterprises are taking strategic stakes, but in pockets of developed nations like Spain and Italy. (Kudos to the Financial Times for reporting on both of those.)

Now come figuresâ€“the Global Bilateral Migration Database, still a work in progress or â€œforthcomingâ€ as the social scientists sayâ€“that put meat on the bone. This joint project of the United Nations population division and the World Bankâ€™s research division has used extrapolation from the 2000 census round (latest available) to project where things stood in 2010. Estimates sometimes have supplemented where census data were lacking.

The headline numbers:

*An estimated 5.42 million mainland Chinese-born are living abroad. So the offhand references to â€œ5 millionâ€ that Iâ€™ve seen in press accounts are close to the mark. BUTâ€¦approximately 2.2 million of those are in Hong Kong. (Those in Taiwan arenâ€™t included.)

*Yet, China is not the leader. Indiaâ€™s total is an estimated 5.95 million, not including those in other parts of South Asia, which at 3.45 million is partly an outgrowth of Partition.

*The Philippines, though only the 12th most populous nation, ranks third with an estimated 2.97 million migrants. And both the Indian and Filipino numbers likely are diminished by inadequate root census data from the Persian Gulf economies where so many have gone for jobs in recent times.

*Russia is fourth, with 2.05 million, and that does not include those in other former states of the USSR. Add those, and the Russian total jumps over 10 million.

*Nigerians? Only 680,000, though the internal migration data for Africa are weak and therefore a comparative undercount is likely.

*All told, 214 million of the globeâ€™s 6.9 billion people have migrated. Surprising to me: 49% of them are female.

This is fascinating stuff. Thereâ€™s no better measure of the â€œsoft powerâ€ exercised around the world than the migrant presence, especially if those people are commercially active and, ideally, creating work for others as well. My sense is that the Chinese are very much in this game. And these numbers only reflect a first-generation presenceâ€“not the overall diaspora.

Why the Indian lead? Chalk it up to colonial ties, plus English-language facility that has permitted access to more labor markets, especially at higher income levels that can support bringing an extended family along.

I am indebted to Caglar Ozden of the World Bank and Bela Hovy of the U.N. for giving me an insight into this. They are careful scholars who recognize the limitations in such a project, but also its vital use.

Having numbers is good, but clout is the bottom-line. Right now, it seems, that the expat Chinese enjoy greater clout which they are willing to use for their national benefit. The same cannot be said about indian expats. Not many of them have much clout. If some do, I am not sure, whether they use it for Indian benefit...

Even at the south-western edge of Europe â€“ in a country that has no memorable historical ties with China â€“ the combination of entrepreneurial Chinese migrants and Beijingâ€™s increasing global influence has started to have a noticeable impact on urban life and the national economy.

The China phenomenon in Spain is barely a decade old, but its importance is growing. Chinese immigrants came later to Spain than they did to other developed European economies, probably because the country was itself a slow developer and late arrival in the European Union.

In 1961 there were just 161 Chinese nationals resident in Spain, according to official statistics, and they numbered less than 10,000 as late as 1995. Today there are more than 170,000, although the real number including illegal migrants is estimated at about 240,000.

The population is already large enough to support its own newspaper industry. â€œMost Chinese here donâ€™t speak Spanish, so we translate news about Spain into Chinese, so they are informed about general news and above all about immigration policy,â€ says Tao Xinyi, editor-in-chief at the Ouhua (Europe-China) media group founded in 2002.

Chinese immigration began in the traditional way: a family-owned Chinese restaurant here and there; the occasional shop selling cheap household goods and advertising todo a cien (â€œEverything for 100 pesetasâ€). Urban Spaniards now go to el chino for spur-of-the-moment purchases just as Britons go their Indian- or Pakistani-run corner shops.

In the past few years the Chinese have also established themselves in the Spanish wholesale trade, based in Fuenlabrada, on the southern outskirts of Madrid, where they trade in the increasingly large quantities of clothes, shoes and toys imported from China. In 2009, Spain imported â‚¬14.5bn ($20bn) of products from China, now its third biggest supplier after Germany and France, and exported nearly â‚¬2bn of its own goods to China.

Spanish business owners have reacted to the rise of Chinese enterprise in their midst with a mixture of admiration, resentment and fear. Six years ago there were violent protests against Chinese shoe imports. Spaniards have since been obliged to recognise the importance of the Chinese as customers, competitors and, increasingly, employers.

Chinese investors have also purchased homes and businesses everywhere from Barcelona to Las Palmas in the Canary Islands. And unlike Spaniards encumbered with regulations and official bureaucracy, they are accustomed to developing new businesses in a matter of weeks rather than over months or years.

I have read quite some time back that the Chinese diaspora is 50 millions plus.

Indian diaspora is supposed to be 20 million plus. We have several millions in the gulf states, then in Africa, West Indies and millions in the West.

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Impossible. Where would the 50 million+ diaspora be? If you count descendants of descendants and descendants of mixed marriages and populations of descendants in Indonesia, Java etc. many eons ago, the Mongolians would probably have the largest. By that token, you'd have to count the descendants of Muhajirs in Pakistan, and other parts of South Asia as well as Indians in South Africa and descendants of Roma and Sinti in Europe and Latin America. Because China, of ancient times, was not of the same shape as it is today.

Impossible. Where would the 50 million+ diaspora be? If you count descendants of descendants and descendants of mixed marriages and populations of descendants in Indonesia, Java etc. many eons ago, the Mongolians would probably have the largest. By that token, you'd have to count the descendants of Muhajirs in Pakistan, and other parts of South Asia as well as Indians in South Africa and descendants of Roma and Sinti in Europe and Latin America. Because China, of ancient times, was not of the same shape as it is today.

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It includes the native Chinese in South East Asian countries like Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore etc.

Check this site. It mentions 40 million population of Chinese diaspora.